Confusion about different forms of the past tense

Welsh General / Questions
#21

I tend to “cover” this in “Useful stuff” topic with some other things in mind too, but I just somehow have to figure out how to be “polite” and “convincing” to use this feature at the same time. Since I’m not native English speaker I can very easily (came to this knowledge right here on this forum thanks to all of you, nice people) go off track with unwanted expression which I’m sometimes not even aware it meanst something totally different then I wanted to point out.

For teh questions, keep them comming @MarilynHames!

Hwyl!

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#22

Diolch yn fawr Iestyn–both for your encouragement and useful tips about the pop-ups.

I am already getting a feel for the lovely people in this community–maybe, am I imagining this, or making it up, but I have a half-remembered memory of the word “Cymraeg” having its roots in the concept of a community of comrades?

What a welcome difference from the world of competition–a forum of friends who collaborate and share insights.

Bravo! Hey, what’s Welsh for that?

Good night,
Marilyn

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#23

Indeed, Marilyn.
Here we were (well our ancestors, actually) living in Pritain, which the Romans called Britania and speaking Romano-British, when the Legions left. Since the one job none of us could do and stay home was fight…defending our Island was a challenge! (Any eager lad wanting to join a Legion had been welcome, but he must immediately leave Britain and could serve anywhere in the Empire but here!) So, we get invaded. Sais (Saxons), Angles, Danes, Vikings, the Irish… Out of those the pushiest were Saxons and Angles who took all the east and south, pushing us west and north. At some stage, calling our language ‘British’ became meaningless, although it was what led to the naming of Brittany! So our country, the bits we had left, were our community and our language was our common speech!

#24

Don’t forget the Jutes…and they had the cheek to leave those scruffy shopping bags made of old sacks behind them … :smiling_imp:

#25

Now fast forward…what? 1500 years maybe, and I have just read that there was a huge revival of the Welsh language and culture spurred on but the religious “Awakening” that saw the building of a new chapel every 8 days (according to a recent article on the BBC World Service). I guess those were the glory days of hymn-singing which thankfully at least the WRU still promotes :slight_smile: It was also a time of massive political awakening to the “power of the people”, and passion for learning that fueled that.

Things then seem to have gone downhill, thanks to the aftermath of various wars, and so perhaps many of us visiting this forum are part of the latest wave of the Welsh diaspora–(the young, and not-so-young but were once, folk like me living on the West Coast of Canada). Having grown up in Cardiff, and even worked on the “Heads of the Valleys” highway, busy building bridges while some of my friends were thinking of blowing them up, I miss sorely the connections.

So here I am–no Jute bags in hand (more’s the pity–all plastic over here and I don’t know where the “Plasts” heralded from)… My sense from what I read on this forum is that there is a new “Awakening” afoot, maybe not of religious making, but certainly spiritual–because there is clear spirit of mutual respect and cooperation sponsored here–and a love of the culture that perhaps is the seed of love for one another.

Beautiful!

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#26

Wow!! I did a double take and then clicked on your pic and found you really are an engineer!! Well done!! There are a few more now, but retired female engineers are pretty rare!! When I went to Cambridge for an interview in 1960, the Mistress of Girton was very keen on my doing Chemical Engineering because I’d be the first woman ever!! (Well, from Girton!). I didn’t see myself in bulk production, didn’t get into Cambridge and ended up in Medical Research… but I admire you!! Civil Engineer!!
But most of the blowing-up was further north, surely??!!! :boom:

#27

Sounds like you paved another wonderful path for women too–kudos all around!!!

Aye, I clocked up quite a few ‘firsts’ over the years and had a lot of fun along the way thanks the marvelous men I worked with–they were great mentors. Yes, I started as a civil engineer, mainly in bridge-building, but am also a mechanical and structural who spent the last 25 years of my career in mining–a job that took me around the world many times, always to remote places from the high Arctic to highlands of PNG, from the Atacama and Nevada Deserts to S Africa and the Himalayas. What an adventure. However, I still hanker after the ‘…green, green, grass of home…’ and make it back to the ‘Land of my fathers’ at least once a year–visiting my brother and nephew in St. Nicholas.

When I retired I finished a doctorate in ministry and now volunteer as a priest–payback time, but always needing a challenge, here I am–hearing impaired, but trying to ‘say something in Welsh!’
And you?

Hwyl,
Marilyn

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#28

Oh, nothing like as inspiring as you!! I ended up in Health Physics looking after radiation safety. I also smoked until 2010 at which point I was carried into hospital gasping with a nasty chest infection. I found out that nicotine patches worked and never smoked again, but have COPD which is progressive, so currently I don’t walk far and my eyes are not what they were so I gave up driving!! So am in pretty Argyll in Yr Alban, sharing a house with a friend and spending a lot of time chatting with new friends met in this web site!! I have learned Cymraeg many times and often, in de and gog and forgotten much too!!
I don’t think I could have travelled as you did,partly because my mother was terminally ill and I felt obliged to live within reach until 1971, at which point my career path was fairly well mapped!

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#29

Seems like you have had a tremendously demanding and fulfilling life, one you can look back on with great pride and satisfaction, while enjoying old friends and looking forward with pleasure in the company of the new friends you are making through SSiW.

This is a magical website–perhaps we should encourage those who have the story-teller’s gift to write tales about using the forum like Alice’s Looking Glass, or the port-keys in Harry Potter–a way into a wonderland of lovely people, new friends and new ideas carried on the wings of the wonderful Welsh language.

We can travel anywhere we want in our minds–I visit many people who cannot get about much for various reasons, but go places most folk cannot see or dream of–the centre of a flower, ray of sunshine crossing their bedspread, or drop of rain on the window taking them on journeys most of us are too busy to undertake.

I was told that in Celtic myths and/or spirituality there are ‘thin places’ like ponds, or seashores, or just the mist, where the veil between our day-to-day world and another realm is so thin we can see into it or enter safely into a paradise that we contribute towards by adding to it’s peace. Hopefully, these magical ‘thin places’ are not limited to Wales, or other far-off shores… in fact it is time for a walk, and on this crisp, colourful, autumnal day I may find one :smile:

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#30

You seam one of them to me … :slight_smile:

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#31

I agree with Tatjana!! You are a bard, not just a story teller!!

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#32

Diolch yn fawr Tatjana. Dw i’n joio un ‘story’ da, a dw i’n meddwl bo’ ti’n ‘the gift’ gyda fi.

OK so this is bi-lingual for now, but hoffen i’r cyfle i ymarfer.

Nos da–prynhawn da yn Vancouver),
Marilyn

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#33

Diolch yn fawr!

High praise indeed, but know what they say–‘it takes one to know one’, so if there isn’t already a ‘beginners’ bardic circle’, perhaps we should form one right here on the forum.

Ha! Looking over the topics, It seems there is an eisteddfod on the forum, so let me catch up on my reading–perhaps you have submitted contributions many times, or if not should give it a try. What would it be–a poem, a story, a song?

Hwyl,
Marilyn

#34

No and I won’t… I write very bad verse and even worse in Cymraeg!! Given a year to work on something and real incentive… a subject that grabbed me… I might try, but the World Cup got in the way of me even thinking of getting something ready by November 1st!!! As for prose… I just don’t associate prose with Eisteddfodau!!

#35

I see your concern–November 1st 2015 is almost upon us, and like you I would not be remotely prepared to enter anything this year. However, being a newbie, Aran’s words of encouragement ring in my ears–the notion of setting goals. Maybe a worthwhile learning goal for me would be to try to write something–anything that might express what this journey into another language and culture is like–the ups and downs, the great people I’ve met along the way to offer a helping hand, then new horizons I can glimpse that I hadn’t seen before, the new possibilities it opens–what fun!

Back in the summer I had started to wonder if I was becoming mentally lazy and static, but didn’t know what would kick-start me into some engaging mental exercise that felt just ‘right’. Out of the blue, following a visit to my brother and friends in Wales, came this idea–a conviction really, that I could learn Welsh. What a difference it is making! I feel more alert already, but better still have a goal–several, actually.

My short-term goal is to reach Challenge 25 by 25th December–Christmas! I’m on #11 and spend about 1+ hour a day at it, breaking that into 2 sessions. It is a case of 2 steps forward 1 step back–in fact that is my method, always pushing forward to maintain my interest and momentum, but going back to pick up any pieces I seem to have dropped along the way by either repeating a challenge without pausing (almost), but moving on to a new challenge with pauses and checking the written text as necessary. So my immediate goal–today is to go over Challenge 11, then try #12. Also, to set up Skype today (hopefully) so I can enjoy the chance to practice Welsh via Skype in preparation for using it on my annual visit ‘home’

As for long-term–something, no matter how simple or short for November 1st 2016. How about a Welsh Haiku?–14 words to capture a thought :smile:

BUT as I mentioned in one of my first forays on this forum–a lesson from my old rock-climbing days, we each have our own climb, our own challenges, our own pace. This isn’t a competition it is one glorious venture into what feels like the unknown, but on a path many have trodden before us. It is like being given a glimpse into the very birth of language–listening to the grunts and music, then imitating them, seeing how others respond (in English if necessary–like this today), but reaching across thousands of years and miles to recapture the essence of what it means to be human and forging relationships with other creatures of our kind. Can’t you feel the warmth of the campfire?.. see the shadows dancing on the foliage, setting everything into marvelous relief?.. hear the magic and music of sound?.. feel a great big smile form as we discover we are friends?.. and let the weariness of today’s journey fall from our limbs as we relax :slight_smile:

“What is done is done; what is not done is not done–let it be.” (NZPB) Tomorrow is a new day, but let’s stop, take a deep breath, and enjoy what is left of today (which for me has just started).

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#36

That’s an excellent way of thinking of it… :sunny:

#37

Have you read the categories? I think it’s 20 lines of free verse or an englyn or a prose piece.